Negotiations
by thestylus01
Summary: Another routine trade mission. The aftermath.


Negotiations  
by the stylus

* * *

There was a dark bruise on her cheek when she stepped off of the transporter pad. In the flat light of the ship it highlighted the sharp line of the bone. The rest of the away team was very quiet as she descended to meet me. Very quiet.

"Captain--" She rested a hand lightly on my arm. "How did the negotiations go?"

She smiled and raised the padd she carried. "We got what we wanted, Commander. Enough dilithium to keep B'Elanna happy for several months, some other raw materials, a good deal of food... and no leola root." She leaned close to me and the tone of the joke was right, but the cadence wasn't. Her eyes glittered, and for a moment I thought she might be on the verge of tears. Then she straightened and turned to dismiss the away team. When she turned back to hand me the padd it was the hard glimmer of diamonds set deep in her face which refracted my stare.

"Captain, you should let the Doctor look at that." I brushed the pads of my fingers over her cheek, so lightly I wasn't sure I touched her at all.

"I will."

It surprised me; the ease of her acquiescence seemed a bit out of character. But then, there was no longer anything pressing upon us: no crisis, no shortage, no threat. I had nothing to do but see her out of the transporter room and return to the bridge.

* * *

I badgered Kim all day to find out what he knew about what had happened on the planet. But he was either in the dark with the rest of the away team or not as innocent as I liked to think. "You'll have to ask the Captain about that, Commander." He would say nothing else. 

There was a question that needed to be asked, but I was damned if I knew what it was.

* * *

That evening she came to me while I sat in my darkened quarters deciding whether or not to ring the chime on her door. I'll admit, I was surprised. It was not at all what I expected from her. But she stepped into my living room out of uniform, wearing something dark, loose and nondescript. I beckoned her to sit down and she did, gracefully accepting the hot tea which I poured from a half-filled pot on the table. Her long fingers were elegant as they feathered around the mug. I could smell her: cinnamon and dry leaves in autumn on a clear morning.

"Commander. Chakotay." She seemed ready to plunge straight into whatever it was she had come to say, but then veered abruptly off course. "Did you get the supplies allocated?"

I had to struggle to keep up. "Oh... yes. B'Elanna praised Kahless ten ways from Sunday and Seven said that Astrometrics could, I quote, 'return to peak efficiency' thanks to the raw materials. I think Hydroponics and Neelix are both happy with the foodstuffs, although he did ask me if we hadn't managed to procure some leola root."

It might have been a smile had it reached her eyes. After that, neither of us knew what to say. I think we both knew why we were there, but not how to bring ourselves to the words. She was still, staring over my shoulder out the viewport, and I wondered what kind of force of will it took to hold her hands quiet around her tea. I have rarely seen her when she is not in motion of some sort. Usually she is only still when she is engrossed in a scientific pursuit--and there were no padds in front of her here, no complicated theorems called up on a screen. I tried to match her posture, as if to prove that I could curb myself the same way; but I realized that I was suddenly distinctly uncomfortable and allowed my hands to flutter from the teapot to the carved rock on the table and back to my mug. When I began to worry the fabric of the arm of the couch I broke the silence.

"What happened down there?" I would have used her name, but I wasn't sure I could.

She cocked her head to the side, as though debating how much she was willing to allow me. The movement was wire-tense, and I wondered if she would speak or spring. After a long moment she gave a rueful shrug: "I wish I knew. We beamed down and they welcomed us into the Council Hall, which was a cross between a briefing room and a throne room. The culture appears to be highly structured when it comes to trade. A bit like the Ferengi, only with small ears-- and three of them.

"Anyway, they only deal with people 'accorded equal stature and merit by their positions within their home cultures.' The First Prefect for Offworld Exchanges was, apparently, the closest thing they could find to a Captain." A bit of self-reproach crept in. "The away team was split up before I knew what was happening. The Prefect and I were left in the Hall to 'determine the nature of the exchange.' It was an... interesting process. Whoever gave us the information on this culture left out some important parts."

She paused to sip her tea and I closely studied the planes of her face. The Doctor had healed the bruise but the bones of her cheek were still far too prominent, the skin stretched taut over them and down to the line of her jaw. Idly I wondered when she'd gotten so thin without me noticing. I think I might have been looking for a chink in the armor, some sign that she was coming undone under the weight of what had happened, another burden on those shoulders which sometimes seemed frighteningly thin to bear an entire quadrant. I didn't find it. Her jaw was firm and her slim fingers around the curve of the mug were steady; her voice was even as she picked up the thread of the story.

"Apparently it's a culture in which status is established by a carefully controlled system of violence. It's very interesting, actually. In a culture which absolutely depends upon trade for survival, they manage to maintain an extremely delicate balance between anarchy and lawfulness--and it appears that they have done so, with very few exceptions, for centuries on end."

I was not at all sure that I found anything interesting about the arrangement. Still she went on in that steady, unrelenting cadence.

"Of course, I didn't know that at the time. The Prefect and I were left alone. We negotiated for the things Voyager needed with a minimum of fuss. Compared to most of the races we come across out here, they were easy people to deal with. I didn't even have to offer all of the materials we had prepared, which was a pleasant surprise. Goodness knows it helps us to hold onto everything we can in this sector of space, though we needed the materials so badly I would have given them just about anything. So... "

A small hesitation, perhaps only a fraction of a second, but by now everything in me was tuned to finding the catch in her breath or the quick aversion of her eyes.

"So?" I prompted quickly. Looking back, there was something almost eager about it.

"So... as soon as we had completed the negotiations, the Prefect rose from the table, gave a formal gesture that was something like a bow and said that he simply required a blood bond to seal the trade." Something unidentifiable ghosted across her features and was gone. "I thought the universal translator was just having trouble with an idiom, but it turns out that they do go in for sealing the deal with blood. It's a sort of a very rough handshake. They figure anyone serious enough about a trade to let blood over it won't renege." A wry twist of her expression. "I would imagine that they don't have many trades made hastily or under false pretenses."

"When it was over the Prefect bowed. Doctors came to patch us both up and the Council agreed to the trade. I had proven Voyager's merit and capabilities, as well as my own. It was all very civilized." There should have been more bitterness in her voice, I think. It hadn't been a finger prick, or even a flesh wound. "We beamed back to the ship... and you know the rest." She ended with a flourish of her hand, meant to encompass us both.

I reached out to her, resting my hand on her arm the way she had done earlier in the transporter room. My voice was deliberately soft, concerned. "Kathryn, what really happened down there?"

"I've told you, Chakotay." She was not defensive or angry, which was what I was expecting. Instead, her tone was even, measured. I wasn't in the dark and she knew it. She knew that I would have seen the Doctor's report: on a ship like Voyager there are only so many secrets that can be kept. She knew that I could deduce as well as anyone from the location of her injuries what she had given in exchange for the supplies we desperately needed, what the Prefect had asked in addition to the blood to seal the bond. Maybe she even knew that I was expecting her to cry on my shoulder the way she had a few times in the past. That I was remembering what it felt like to have her, narrow frame still trembling, in my arms and stroke the gilt silk of her hair. That I called it friendship or comfort when I thought of it.

"You need to talk about it, Kathryn."

She met my concerned gaze with a level intensity. I was reminded that in other situations she could inspire fear. And awe. "No, Chakotay, I don't think I do. Not this time."

I physically flinched, pulling my hand back where it burned from the contact. "Kathryn," it was a plea, now, "it will help you." She simply stared back at me, uncharacteristically at rest. Her hands were steady, still holding the cup of tea; her eyes glittered darkly; her face was impassive.

"I want to help. Kathryn, you know I would never hurt you." Again that cool appraising gaze, her head slightly cocked. She was exquisitely lovely in the faint wash of starlight. I felt unsettled by her examination and by her beauty--and by her calm certainty.

"I would never hurt you," I repeated.

A pause. "Yes, Chakotay, I think you would." A quick, sad smile played at her mouth and disappeared.

She left the mug on the table, half-filled. The motions she made in leaving were graceful and economical. She was so beautiful it hurt to breathe and as she left she did not look back. I could hear her greet an Ensign in the hall before the doors closed on her figure. I was left with the lingering presence of the line of her spine, the scent of her skin and the caress of her voice. And the force of my need, the shadows of my face, the bulk of my hands.

* * *

Fin

All characters are the property of their creators. The author makes no profit from this work.


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